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To do List
Future ideas * Try out a level in the "cave" setting to test a scrolling environment. * Fight in front of a space cruiser shooting giant lasers Done : # Implementing Versus mode # Tuning Movement # Implementing weapons # implementing inertia # implementing physics # Implementing bounce border # Implementing damage effects # Implementing interactive level # Implementing simple HUD # Patch V0.2 To do : Here is listed what is coming and suggested : # Adding Shields # Parry system # Hell mode # Bust mode # More weapons (ongoing) # More Levels (ongoing) # Better health bar (ongoing) # Adding weapon gauges (ongoing) # Combo system # Counter hit system # Start Screen (ongoing) # Select fighter Screen # Select Level Screen # Victory Screen # Solo mode # Story mode # Coop mode # 3V3 versus mode # Visual identity upgrade # Audio identity upgrade # Online versus mode # Selling on Steam # Selling on Android # Selling on Iphone Concepts to respect : * Having a balance level of uncertainty from the environment (AI animated) * Having a near-perfect level of certainty from the weapons and ships you use (player animated) * Having a balance level of uncertainty from your opponent. (opponent animated) * simplicité, brièveté, facilité. Trip Hawkins, le fondateur d'Electronic Arts, insistait pour que les jeux soient « simples, excitants et profonds ». La simplicité et la profondeur (c'est-à-dire la subtilité ou la variété) contribuent toutes deux à la rejouabilité. Pour ce qui est de l'excitation, la rejouabilité est assez peu concernée ; ça aide simplement si c'est le genre de jeux que vous appréciez. # Concevoir un jeu rejouable est le test ultime pour un game designer. La rejouabilité requiert un défi simple et addictif et une interface utilisateur aussi naturelle et fluide que possible. Toutes ces choses énormes, chères et funs auxquelles nous associons le développement de jeux — des graphismes spectaculaires, des centaines de types d'unités, quinze angles de caméra différents ou bien un narrateur doublé par Patrick Stewart — sont complètement hors de propos ici. Le jeu est réduit à l'absolument essentiel : un défi et les moyens de le surmonter. Si j'essayais de créer un jeu avec une grande rejouabilité, je pourrais effectivement commencer avec des cartes ou des dominos, des éléments que je peux manipuler sur une table. Ils ne finiraient pas nécessairement tels quels dans le jeu, ils pourraient tout aussi bien prendre la forme de génies ou de vers géants. Leur apparence extérieur ne fait pas une grande différence tant que le gameplay fonctionne. "Consider all three player types: players with skill, players with time, and players with money." Shane Neville ( excerpts from smups 101 BulletMagnet) * Theoretical Perfection ” Perhaps the single most important quality for any respectable shmup to possess: it should be technically possible for a player to make a “perfect” run through the game, without getting hit even once. Put another way, there should never be spots where eating damage is 100 percent unavoidable ” no matter the situation, your raw skills should always be sufficient to get you through if you’re good enough. Of course, only a select few gamers actually are that good, but this ideal MUST be legitimately attainable: failing to tie up this crucial loose end during development is guaranteed to hamstring any shooter, no matter its strengths in other areas * Minimal Downtime ” The fact that so many shooters routinely skimp on story and other ancillary elements in favor of short, action-packed runtimes isn’t exactly shocking: their audience just plain isn’t interested in stagnation of any sort. By and large they’re here to feel those fingers twitching, and the heck with everything else. Relentlessly overloading shmuppers to the point of mental exhaustion isn’t a wise course either, mind you, but 99 percent of the time there had better be something tangibly engaging going on: enemies that put up a genuine fight. Trickily-placed obstacles to dodge. Exploitable opportunities for scoring bonuses. A well-crafted shooter should never, EVER allow a player to “sleepwalk” ” the game should require your near-constant attention, and you should be only too happy to indulge it. * Ample Firepower ” On a related note, any shooter enthusiast will tell you that there’s a marked difference between being briskly challenged and being utterly overpowered: the former, even upon defeat, leaves you satisfied, while the later, even following victory, leaves you exasperated. Pitting a lone escape pod against a galaxy’s worth of bug-eyed, tentacled hostility ought to stack the deck against the player enough from the get-go: stranding him in a rough part of town armed with only a spitball gun is just overkill. Weapon and item access, damage levels, fire rates, movement speed, enemy durability, stage length, checkpoint locations and other factors must be carefully balanced against each other to ensure that the challenger always feels like he has some semblance of hope against the hordes: if the bad guys are going to mercilessly crush us under their heels they should at least have to earn it. * Engaging Score System “A shmup can be a lot of fun even when the scoring is something of an afterthought, so if a more substantial tallying system IS included it had better a) Not be “broken” in any way, and b) Do its job – that is, serve as an enhancement to the experience, not a distraction. Ideally, ratcheting up the point ticker encourages players to utilize all of their inherent advantages on a whole new level, without making these important “tricks” unnecessarily obtuse or impractical ” a well-executed high-score play should be packed with thrills and free of excessive repetition, a thing of beauty and exhilaration for executor and observers alike. In like manner, a good scoring system makes you want to go the extra mile to learn it, even if you don’t technically have to ” to help players compare and compete, online and local tallies should be well-organized, detailed, and easy to read. * Optimal Visibility ” Pretty simple, really: if a game is going to saddle you with a very busy screen and minimal defenses, you’d darn well better be able to see everything that’s going on around you at all times. As much as we all love intricate foreground elements, huge fiery explosions, and bits of shrapnel flying all over the place, these lose their charm VERY fast if they prevent you from spotting a torpedo hovering inches from your nose. The most obvious solution is to give enemy bullets bright, garish, and/or flashing colors and animations, making them tough to ignore under any circumstances – this certainly helps, though thick patterns of this stuff can sometimes render the baddies themselves tough to pick out beneath it all. Muted background graphics can help everything in front of them to “pop”, but too dulled a palette delivers a hit to the overall visual charm: there is, again, a balance to be struck here, but a shmup CAN be both attractive and accommodating, if its designer puts the effort in to make it happen. * In any shooter, precision is paramount ” players must be in total control at all times just to stay alive, let alone excel. For the player * Know Thy Hitbox ” Not every pixel of your onscreen ship is always vulnerable to enemy assaults. Knowing which parts ARE is essential: typically the “danger zone” is a box, cone or sphere around your ship center. Some elements of the ship might be outside the box. Since the game is in 2.5D the hitbox, is not always the same size while banking or dashing. * Practice Makes Perfect” ” Kind of an obvious one, but considering that a number of shmups are in the same league as tourney fighters in terms of the time commitment required for even “competent-level” performance, a bit of persistence is definitely your ally. “Credit feeding” through tough stages to take a peek at later areas is okay at first, but as you get more naturally accustomed to how a game works you should gradually start “playing for score” and aiming for the coveted one-credit clear. Recording footage of your attempts, which some games can do for you out of the box, might help, as can studying “superplays” of “expert” runs, which are both watchable online and packaged as full-featured commercial videos. Off to the side, some shmuppers speak in furtive whispers of “the zone”, a semi-mystical extra-focused gaming state of mind attained under certain mysterious circumstances: it’s not an “official strategy” for progress by any stretch, but if you do somehow happen to achieve your own “zone” as you play, go with it! * “But “Perfect” Is NOT Required! ” As awe-inspiring as it is to watch a highly-skilled shmupper strut his stuff, the experience can also be an intimidating one: after all, if you’ve never been devoted enough to video games to put in the kind of time and effort required to reach that degree of skill, are shmups really even worth trying out “just for fun”? The answer, you may be surprised to hear, is an emphatic YES ” getting the essential “basics” of most shooters down is a simple process, and individual “sessions” are almost always short and to-the-point, perfect for gainfully employed gamers in need of titles which can be quickly finished up for the time being and easily resumed during a spare few minutes later on. Contrary to what you might have heard, this is actually a big part of what makes the genre so appealing to its admirers: even if you lack the ability or inclination to totally “master” a shmup, advancement can still be made even if you only pick up a controller “when you can” or “when you feel like it”. So long as you don’t try to boastfully lump yourself in with the “top-tier” set, your fellow shmuppers will never criticize you for taking it slow: many of them, after all, are in the exact same boat. So relax ” when you’re playing something with a name like “shmup”, feel free to check your self-consciousness at the door. Principle Scoring Systems concepts * (Individual shmups’ approaches to bringing home the big bonus points range from the bleedingly obvious to “who thought THIS up?”, but when you get right down to it nearly all are dependent on a short checklist of basic features, namely 1) Enemies, 2) Bullets, and 3)Items. Messing around with these three things in some manner or combination forms the backbone of nearly every scoring system ever implemented in a shooter: below are a few of the more common applications, to give you a general (though far from complete) idea of what to expect as you become more familiar with the genre at large.) ** Chaining ” Most commonly associated with Cave’s shooters, the basic idea behind “chaining” is defeating enemies (or collecting the items they drop) either a) In a specific order or b) In near-immediate succession, without leaving too long a gap between “hits”: the longer you can keep this up, the higher the “chain”, and your point bonus, grows. This technique requires both practice and attention (i.e. to memorize where enemies show up, so as to be ready to pick them off at the right moment), as well as restraint – simply snatching up everything on sight will often lead to a break, so you need to “space out” your maneuvers appropriately, even if this means giving the bad guys additional time to attack. Some “chaining” shooters are infamously strict and can be frustrating to master for all but the most devoted players, though not all are quite so demanding. (Examples: DoDonPachi, Mars Matrix, Radiant Silvergun, Game Tengoku) ** Medaling– Countless shooters wedge some manner of item collecting into their structure, but “medaling”, named for the “medal” items from several Raizing shooters that popularized this system, is a specialized variation meriting further explanation. As you destroy certain enemies or containers, these unusual point-awarding items (“medals”) start to show up: at first they’re only worth a pittance, but for each one you collect the next one’s value increases, and once the sequence tops out the points quickly start to pile up. Most such games require that no “medals” be missed in order to keep the bonus climbing: allowing a single reward to drop off the screen often forces you to start the “medaling” process over. A related “item-based” scoring mechanic requires the moment of collection to be timed precisely (usually in sync with a visual cue) to up the ante. (Examples: Battle Garegga, Gunbird 2, Twinbee, Trizeal) ** Proximity Bonus ” Sure, keeping a safe distance from threats is usually a good idea, but every once in awhile a shoot-em-up will tempt you to forget everything you know about personal safety in the name of bonus points: “You really gonna let that armed-to-the-teeth battleship say mean things about your momma? Dry those sissy baby tears and get in his FACE!” The most common and straightforward implementation of this seemingly-suicidal gimmick simply awards extra points based on how close you are to enemies when you kill them; other times you’re compensated for hovering near any threat onscreen, including walls and projectiles (exploiting the latter, specifically, is known as “grazing”, “scratching”, “scraping”, or “buzzing”). The constant risk of being “point-blanked” by nearby baddies makes both muscle-memory repetition (you’d better know exactly how long it takes to kill that thing before it unloads on you) and twitch reflexes musts for success. (Examples: Omega Fighter, Ketsui, Silpheed: The Lost Planet, Shikigami no Shiro) ** Kill Bonus ” Now here’s a category which truly taps into that most primal shmupping instinct: blowing lots of stuff up! Of course, if you want to reap maximum profits from all that destruction you’ll have to channel your taste for mayhem in slightly more nuanced directions: for instance, you might want to lure groups of enemies close together and then take them all out in one shot to multiply their value. Alternatively, it might be in your best interests to bring down your adversaries extra-quickly, or simply not let a single member of a particular “marked” group (including non-aggressive “environmental” targets) escape your fury. Sometimes your goal will be to blast away every single “outer” piece of a boss before “shooting the core” for the final kill, while on other occasions you’ll be rewarded for a single “sniper shot” to a well-equipped enemy’s elusive weak spot. Countless variations on this theme exist, so give the manual or in-game tutorial a quick glance before setting off to wreak glorious havoc. (Examples: Layer Section, Vasara, Raiden III, Star Soldier) ** Resource Management ” A relatively recent and somewhat complex addition to the list, these shmups usually require the player to amass and expend (or “cash in”) two or more separate “resources” (items, power meter, etc.) in appropriate tandem to product the best results. For instance, say that taking down targets with your “main” weapon makes them leave behind ammo for your limited-use “super” weapon: defeating enemies with the latter, in turn, causes them to spawn bonus points, but depletes the weapon’s energy faster, leaving you with less to fall back on in a tough spot. How much time you want to devote to either stockpile is up to you: going in one direction often means an easier 1CC, while the other leads to higher scores. “Resource management” can often be tricky to wrap one’s head around at first, but hands-on experimentation can usually clear up misconceptions much faster than reading or hearing about it from outside sources. (Examples: Mushihime-sama Futari (Maniac), Espgaluda, Radirgy, Akai Katana) ** Milking/Leeching ” Not really a “scoring system”, per se, but a loosely-defined “technique” used to squeeze as many points as possible out of adversaries – “milking” usually refers to lengthy battles, like bosses, while “leeching” is a briefer variation applied to minor enemies. Many games enable its use, but a few are especially dependent on it for high score competition. Basically, instead of dispatching nasties immediately, slow down and take “em for all they’re worth: if a boss regenerates destroyed parts, let him live and blast them off a few times apiece for extra points. If a mid-size opponent fills the screen with bullets when allowed to linger too long, tempt fate and summon forth the onslaught before unleashing a special attack to cancel the whole mess into bonus items. This obviously requires patience on the player’s part, so most developers use a timer or other means to limit “milking” to a degree: allowing it to go on indefinitely, after all, gives a skilled player free reign to essentially break the game. (Examples: Giga Wing, Psyvariar, Muchi Muchi Pork!, Border Down) ** End Bonus ” One of the many little pleasures coveted by shooter players is taking a few well-deserved moments to relax after a hard-fought level is finished ” of course, this brief respite is SO much more fulfilling if you get to watch the game tally up a nice long list of awards before moving on. As with “milking”, a ton of games award extra bonuses at the end of each level (and/or the game’s conclusion), though the criteria evaluated varies widely: remaining lives and/or bombs, enemy shoot-down percentage, score item count, secrets discovered, and boss clear time are a few of the more established ones. Though the amount of points given can seem somewhat inconsequential compared to what’s “actively” gained mid-stage, a strong finish to each level can still make or break a high-score run in more than a few cases, so try not to die at a spot where it’ll be tough to recover before the end (or at all, if you can manage it!). (Examples: Viper Phase 1, 19XX, Raiden DX, Blast Wind) Pool : What Great shmups must have ? (http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?10252-What-makes-a-great-SHMUP) -Awesome music: these games are by definition fast and high on action, if the music sucks and isn't equally as high energy as the game, then the game suffers. Changing music is also great, nothing quite like the music changing when you reach some huge boss battle. -Awesome sound effects: these games are defined by shooting! Lots of weapons discharging, countless explosions; all this stuff better sound good, or the game seems incomplete. All the sound should be almost overwhelming.(this is my biggest issue with Robo Alleste for SCD, the sound effects just don't cut it) -Varied powerups: it's great when the weapons and powerups you get aren't the same "homing weapon, spread shot and really powerful laser" you see in almost every SHMUP. Some weapon creativity is nice, at least in presentation, sure there are only so many things these weapons can do, but original design for how they look is welcome. -Not losing all your upgrades when you die: I don't know about other people but it's a total deal breaker for me when you lose everything upon exploding. A weapon downgrade that's fair, but losing everything, that just makes me not want to play. -Some story: A lot of SHMUPs seem to be designed with no story in mind, it's like you're a ship, blowing up other ships, who cares why. That's lame, I think it adds a lot to the game when you have some story to go on, especially if there are cut scenes between the levels, and some characters attached to the little ships. -HUD and screen effects: it adds a lot to the action when you have special effects reflecting the game's current state. Stuff like flashing warning signs when bosses are approaching. Nice active HUD layouts that reflect the state of your ship, maybe a space for portraits of other charactes when they talk to you. -combo system - this is one of the great things about mars matrix, the added strategy of trying to combo all of the gold cube things -good selection of ships -Bossfights - tight gameplay. -Co-op -Huge explosions - Stages with hazards. You all remember them. Land masses you can slam into, mazes to make your way through, things like that. So many shmups just use the backgrounds as something pretty under the ships and fuckton of bullets. Those backgrounds should be just as big a threat as any enemy or bullet. - Relies on something other than simply throwing 251 bullets at your per second to make it a challenge. Bullet curtain shmups are fun, but bullets alone shouldn't be the defining aspect of its difficulty. - Multiple endings. Come on shmup makers. If I manage to beat a game on Hard, give me more than what I'd see by beating it on Easy. Zero Wing did a good job with this, as did''M.U.S.H.A.''. Omit the ridiculously difficult stages, you know the ones where no less than 30 on-screen projectiles/enemy ships are aiming for you at any given time. many times these stages make a person want to throw the game in the trash. - Weapons: I hate weapons that are almost useless. A good game will allow balancing of weapons for certain levels, but still make the weapon a viable choice if you prefer that style (and it's direct effect on gameplay and reactions). It doesn't have to have a bazillion different options either. Not to much, not to little. It's also highly dependent on the game. As in, some games allow you to collect, keep, and switch been collected weapons. TF3, while I love that game, have 1-2 too many weapons. - Interaction: No, not necessarily gameplay. Be interaction, I mean blowing shit up and how you take down enemies. I love blowing up shit/parts you don't necessarily have to. I also love lots of one hit swarms of enemies. Keep them coming! I love non stop enemies crashing into my rapid firing bullets and meeting a death with a nice explosion sound (even better when you have occasional random explosions and explosion sounds). I'm NOT a fan of lots of bullets. As in "bullet hell" shooters. Why? Cause I don't have OCD, that's why. If I just wanted to dodge shit, I'd go just play dodge ball all day. No good. - interesting and varied enemy designs - frantic action that is fun not frustrating - Fun to watch Mechanics (not too simple and not too complicated) Stage design Bullet patterns Difficulty overall pacing http://shmuptheory.blogspot.fr/2010/02/anatomy-of-shmup.html Category:To do Category:Update Category:Coming soon